La Fin
by BlueMew
Summary: Returning home, one can only hope that all have kept their promises. RhintxAlisaxJet


I don't own Cowboy Bebop. This is a post-series fic, non-AU, and is set a month or two after the series end.  
  
This is my first attempt at a Rhint Celonias piece. Constructive criticism is appreciated.

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He had received the maximum sentence for his crime; six months in a medium security prison and labor in the opal mines on Titan for murder, even though the attorney had proven that the action was in self defense. Although his love argued that the punishment was unfair, he accepted his fate as a man should, despite the chase by the bounty hunters of the ship Bebop and his fear of what was to become of his life after committing the crime.  
It had been done to protect her, and the months spent in the desert would be justified if Alisa was now successful with her new bar, wherever she had decided to open it.  
Alisa's letters had stopped only a month and three weeks ago; her last one telling that she could not handle the climate of Callisto and would be leaving the moons of Jupiter forever, starting her business somewhere else.  
But he did not know where to find her now. Ganymede, Callisto, and Io were definitely not options because of the statement made in her last letter, and Mars seemed as if it would be a difficult place to start a business with a lack of capital. Earth was just as impoverished as Jupiter's moons, leaving Venus as the only suitable option for starting a business.  
Rhint Celonias sighed as he looked out the window of the prisoner transport vehicle, watching the endless oceans of Ganymede draw nearer as he sat handcuffed and bound to the cushioned seat. Perhaps she had left a message at their old residence or the bar, some clue he could follow to locate his woman.  
"Come on Celonias." An armed ISSP guard stepped back in to the holding area from the cockpit, unlocking the devices that loosely held the prisoner to the chair. The guard was young, still full of compassion for his charge and his duty, a refreshing change from the usual prison guard.  
It was great to see one so naïve.  
"Are we going straight to the courthouse so I can go back to my life?"  
"Shut yer mouth." Another guard entered; a much bigger man with a twisted scowl permanently etched upon his face. "You're not free yet, mac, and while yer in my care, you ain't gonna talk without showin' us some respect. You understand?"  
Lowering his eyes, a trick he had learned within the first two days of his incarceration to avoid more severe punishment at the hands of the ISSP guards, Rhint nodded. "Yes, officer."  
The familiar rocking of a water landing practically knocked the younger guard from his feet, but Rhint and the veteran stood perfectly still upon impact. For what seemed an eternity, the vessel slowed, finally jarring as a ramp was placed against the side so all could exit.  
"Move." The veteran guard pushed his prisoner toward the exit, causing the young man to stumble a few strides before regaining his balance, walking off the spacecraft with an air of dignity one could only expect from a prisoner that knew he was about to be freed.

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La Fin must have been boarded up upon Alisa's move; apparently no one wanted to own a business in an area going through one of the worst recessions the Moons of Jupiter had ever experienced since their settlement. One of the fishermen he passed while walking along the docks had stated Callisto was in far worse trouble, but Rhint failed to care about the state of the planet. Alisa was gone without a trace, and her last message had been from that forsaken ice moon.  
Perhaps the clue to her whereabouts lay on Callisto, but the small amount of Woolongs that remained in Rhint's bank account were not nearly enough to buy passage off this rock. He could only hope she was granted foresight to know he would need directions to find her.  
"I see they did let you off easy."  
Slowly, the young man's head turned to view the stranger with a heavy hand upon his shoulder. Had he met the balding man before?  
Jerking away from the touch as he realized who the stranger was, Rhint turned around to face Jet completely, arms folded across his chest as his lips spread in a frown. The bounty hunter responsible for his capture was the last person he wished to see in his new life, so of course, Jet Black would be the first familiar person he met.  
"Six months in the Titan mines sure as hell wasn't getting off easy." He stated with a snort, lighting a cigarette with a match. "Why the fuck are you here?"  
The elder shrugged as he lit a cigarette as well, exhaling a thin trail of smoke before speaking, his posture relaxed to keep the other man at ease. "My partner and I had a bit of a falling out. She dropped me here and stole my ship."  
All women are liars. You should know that.  
He heard someone speak those words when he was in the prison on Titan. Who had it been? Oh yes, the grey haired gentleman that served but three days before his sentence was changed to a few hours of community service. That man had not belonged in the prison- his crime was unpaid traffic fines, or at least that was what he told anyone who asked why such a reserved individual would be placed in such an institution.  
Rhint needed to change the subject; doubting Alisa's modus operandi was counterproductive. She would never have given up on him; she promised to wait, to stay with him forever.  
"So you thought you'd come running back to Alisa and everything would work out? Don't make me laugh. She's not here."  
"No, seeing Alisa was the last thing on my mind." Jet sighed, taking another deep drag from the cigarette, sighing slightly as he looked around, making absolutely certain that no one he recognized from the police force was nearby before speaking again. "My former partner, Spike, single handedly destroyed the Red Dragon Syndicate and their commander. The ISSP is upset that he was able to do something they never had been able to do so now they want everyone involved silenced. It wouldn't be safe for me to go anywhere near Alisa, I just have to keep running until they forget."  
The younger man sighed, annoyed with the storytelling. Then again, he knew that some guys just didn't know when to shut up. There was no way one man could bring down an entire crime syndicate, and it made no sense that the ISSP would be upset that if what Jet stated about the demise of the Red Dragons was true.  
"If you're really not going after Alisa, then how about helping me find her? I have a promise to keep."  
Jet seemed to consider the offer, though it wasn't a difficult decision. His answer was 'no'.  
But then again, Alisa had done everything in her power to protect this man, perhaps she deserved to have him returned.  
"Fine. Just, don't get in the way." Running his cybernetic hand over his bald head, Jet sighed. "We'll go to Alisa and then I'll leave as soon as she takes you back.  
"So where is she?"

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"I'm not taking you to Callisto! Find someone else!" Slamming the glass of rum hard upon the dusty bar, sending some of the liquor spilling over the edges upon impact, the captain of the Bebop stood from his chair, glaring at the younger man still seated next to him nursing a bottle of orange flavored vodka. "There are no women on that moon, and there never were women on that moon! It's just a bunch of sick cross-dressing freaks!"  
The alcohol had calmed his overtaxed nerves enough that Rhint could sit placidly through the tirade, right hand clenching the nearly empty bottle tight. La Fin looked the same, just dirtier. It was surprising that Alisa had left most everything she owned in the abandoned bar, but with the cost of moving all of her belongings between the moons and planets would cost more than buying new alcohol and furniture the logic behind the mess did work in some ways. "She wrote me almost two months ago to say she was leaving Callisto, and a month before that she wrote to let me know she bought that place on Callisto and was gonna try fixing it up."  
Jet stopped for a moment, leaning his arms upon the bar. "I had an informant on Callisto. He only saw one woman during the time that you say Alisa would have been there, and that was my associate. There's no way she was there."  
"Did your informant travel all across Callisto?"  
"Well, no. Just the city the Blue Crow is in."  
"The letter was postmarked Black Gold, Callisto. Look." Pulling a crumpled piece of paper from his jacket, Rhint carefully placed the tattered envelope on the bar in front of Jet, who in turn gently turned the envelope over in his hands, sighing as he stared at the virtually insignificant paper in his hands.  
"Ok. So she was in some other city on Callisto. We can go there as soon as I figure out a way to get the Bebop back."  
"If you know the thief, put a bounty on her head."  
Jet could only chuckle. Of course. Faye would come running for him the moment she heard her name read from the list of bounties.  
"We'll probably be able to leave tomorrow. Meet me back here at noon." 


End file.
